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i 149 
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Zionism and the World Peace 



A Rejoinder 

to Herbert Adams Gibbons' Article 
in the Century Magazine of January, 1919 

by 

Professor ISRAEL FRIEDLAENDER 

Author of "Jewish-Arabic Studies," "Selections from 
the Arabic Writings of Maimonides," etc., etc. 



Reprinted for the Zionist Organization of America by permission 
Copyright, 1919, by The Century Co. 



Summary of Mr. Gibbons' Article 

THE British declaration of November 2d, 1917, favoring the establishment in Palestine 
of a national home for the Jewish people, has brought Zionism within the realm of 
practical politics. This sudden sympathy with Zionist aspirations on the part of the 
British Government was prompted by practical considerations. Thus were Egypt and 
the Suez Canal to be covered. Thus was the Sherif of Mecca, recognized as "King of the 
Hedjaz" by the Entente powers, to be checked in his alarming ambition to refound a 
strong Arabic Empire. 

The comradeship in arms during the World War has destroyed the traditional anta- 
gonism between the French and the British. But the latter do not realize that their policy 
in the Near East is a danger to Franco-British friendship. They do not appreciate how 
the French feel about Palestine and Syria. A small band of British Imperialists have 
planned, through using Zionism, to establish an all-rail British route from Haifa to 
Bassorah. 

But France was the pioneer among European , nations in Egypt. She has been the 
protector of Ottoman Christians for almost four centuries, and she has always retained 
a profound interest in the Near East. French Catholics and French Imperialists are 
determined that Palestine shall not be British. 

Nevertheless, Dr. Weitzman in his speech in Jerusalem last April stated cate- 
gorically that the Zionists openly favor Great Britain as the "one just and fairly respon- 
sible guardian over the Holy Land." Grand Rabbi Levy of France and other prominent 
French Jews have expressed the fear that Zionism may revive anti-Semitism in Ptance. 

But the Zionist aspirations will also result in an alarming anti-Semitic movement 
throughout the Moslem world. From a Mohammedan point of view the non-Mohamme- 
dan races are tolerated only so long as they have no political ambitions. Any political 
aspirations on their part will be followed by massacres. Ever since Dr. Weitzman's 
speech there has been a constant cry of protest from the Arabs. The French censor 
permitted the publication of a letter of a Palestinian Arab, stating that Moslems would 
never allow Jews to control Palestine. Arabs are far more Mohammedan than Turks; 
their fanaticism is more to be feared. 

The policy of the Peace Conference is to consult each race in regard to its own 
destiny. The Palestinian Arabs are wnanimous in their determination not to have 
Zionism foisted upon them. They challenge the authority of the British Cabinet to 
dispose of Palestine. Palestine is theirs. 

The argument of the Zionists that there is room for them, too, in Palestine is 
absurd. The world has never admitted such an argument to justify forcible immi- 
gration. 

The English Government was opposed to Zionist immigration on a previous occasion, 
when the offer of a Jewish settlement in British East Africa, made to the Zionists in 
1903, was withdrawn, as a result of the British protests from that colony. 

Zionism wishes to establish a theocratic government in Palestine. But the Moham- 
medans, who themselves believe in a theocratic system of government, will refuse to 
tolerate a non-Mohammedan theocracy. The spirit of the Twentieth Century is unalter- 
ably opposed to government by communities constituted on theocratic principles. We 
must endeavor to show Mohammedan nations the path of political evolution we ourselves 
have followed. 

Zionism will revive anti-Semitism. It will intensify the fanaticism of the Russian 
peasants to whom the Holy Land means more than to any other Christian people. The 
conditions of the Jews in Roumania, Poland, and France will be injuriously affected by it. 

The French Jews as well as the Jews of America are interested only in having liberty 
and equality in these lands. American Jews have lost their fervor for Zionism, which 
they manifested in the time of Dr. Herzl. 

Prominent Zionists are careful to explain that "the return to Zion" is only a mystical 
idea. This is shown by the fact that Zionist Congresses have discussed seriously setting 
up Zion in other places than Palestine, including the United States. 

But if Zionism is mystical and spiritual, why Palestine? Why a distinct nationhood 
for the Jews? How often has peace been disturbed because men failed to comprehend 
the universal Zion for all creeds, in the words of a Palestinian Jew who said, "My King- 
dom is not of this world." 



L1BWAWY or CONGRESS 



^^'. 






Zionism and the World Peace 

A REJOINDER 

By ISRAEL FRIEDLAENDER 




HE array of arguments ad- 
vanced by Herbert Adams 
Gibbons against Zionism in 
the January number of the 
Century Magazine may 
be summarized under three headings: 
First, the Zionists have no right to favor 
British sovereignty over the Holy Land 
and to reject ''any form of dual or mul- 
tiple political control over Palestine." To- 
gether with the British, "they do not ap- 
preciate how the French feel about Pal- 
estine and Syria," and overlook the fact 
that "French Catholics and French im- 
perialists are determined that Palestine 
shall not be British." Second, the great 
powers have no right to determine the 
fate of Palestine. In accordance with the 
principles enunciated by President Wil- 
son, the destinies of Palestine must be left 
in the hands of the Palestinian Arabs. 
"Palestine is theirs." Third, the Zionists 
are altogether wrong in claiming a state 
or a commonwealth. "Why Palestine? 
Why a distinct nationhood for the Jews?" 
Why do the Zionists fail to comprehend 
"the words of the Palestinian Jew who 
said, *My kingdom is not of this world'?" 
I believe I shall follow a more logical 
line of reasoning if I apply myself to 
the last fundamental argument first and 
take up the others later. 

"Why Palestine? Why a distinct na- 
tionhood for the Jews?" Mr. Gibbons, 
who is in the habit of quoting his Jewish 
friends, tells us that some of them had 
warned him against writing on Zionism, 
since, as a Christian, "he can have no 
conception of what Zionism means to the 
Jew." The Jews who spoke to him in 
this manner were entirely mistaken. From 
its very beginning Zionism has had a large 
number of Christian friends, thinkers, 



writers, and statesmen, among them men 
like ex-President Roosevelt and President 
Wilson, who have shown that Christians 
are well able to comprehend "what Zion- 
ism means to the Jew." The recent book 
by Dr. A. A. Berle, formerly professor of 
applied Christianity in Tufts College, on 
"The World Significance of a Jewish 
State," is a striking illustration of the 
ability of a Christian to appreciate the 
message of Zionism in all its depths and 
implications. 

A misconception of Zionism is glar- 
ingly betrayed in several passages of Mr. 
Gibbons's article, in which the author con- 
fesses to be at a loss to explain why Zion- 
ism seems, on the one hand, "mystical 
and spiritual," why it is "from Alpha to 
Omega a spiritual movement," and why, 
on the other hand, it emphasizes the tem- 
poral aspect, and advocates "a distinct na- 
tionhood for the Jews." Without being 
aware of it, Mr. Gibbons has touched the 
vital spot of Zionism, and, for that mat- 
ter, of Judaism. This is not the place 
to enter into theological or historical dis- 
quisitions ; 3^et this much may be said, that 
the fundamental characteristic of Judaism 
which distinguishes it from Christianity is 
the very fact that, while anticipating 
Christianity by hundreds of years in pro- 
claiming the great spiritual message of the 
kingdom of heaven based on the father- 
hood of God and the brotherhood of man, 
it refuses at the same time to accept "the 
words of the Palestinian Jew who said, 
"My kingdom is not of this world," in- 
sisting that the kingdom of heaven must 
be realized right here in this world, in 
the forms of human life and through 
human agencies. The prophets of Israel, 
who were the first to formulate the con- 
cept of one God and one humanity, be- 

803 



804 



THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 



lieved at the same time passionately in 
the racial integrity of their people and in 
the absolute necessity for this people to ex- 
press itself through the agency of an or- 
ganized community life; that is, a com- 
monwealth or a state. The Jewish proph- 
ets were not mere metaphysicians or theo- 
logians; they were "mystical',' and "prac- 
tical" at one and the same time. They 
were both universalists and nationalists, 
believing in the realization of the univer- 
sal ideal through the channel of national 
existence. From this point of view the 
Jewish state appears both as a spiritual 
and as a material aspiration. It is not an 
end in itself, an agency for political ag- 
grandizement and the injustice and op- 
pression that goes with it, but it is a 
means to an end, the physical vessel for a 
spiritual content, the material agency for 
the consummation of the great ideals of 
justice and righteousness. The founders 
of the second Jewish commonwealth ap- 
plied this prophetic doctrine to life when, 
in laying the corner-stone of the second 
temple, they declared, through the mouth 
of the prophet Zechariah, "Not by might, 
nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the 
Lord of hosts." 

This fundamental attitude of the Jew- 
ish people toward its commonwealth has 
been essentially retained and developed by 
modern Zionism. True, Zionism includes 
among its rank and file as well as among 
its leadership many Jews who have drifted 
away from the religious moorings of Ju- 
daism. Yet, though refusing to acknowl- 
edge the metaphysical basis of the pro- 
phetic ideal, they passionately cling to the 
ideal itself. To them, too, Zion is pri- 
marily an opportunity for the Jewish peo- 
ple to express itself in accordance with 
its ancient ideals and aspirations. They 
realize that, while modern Jewry has 
made great material progress as a result 
of Jewish emancipation, and while it has 
contributed far more than its share to the 
spiritual life of the nations in which the 
Jews live, it has done very little for its 
own distinct culture and spiritual develop- 
ment. They point to the fact that, to 
mention a concrete example, while the 



Jews have furnished an amazingly high 
quota of musicians and artists to the 
world, they have failed to develop a dis- 
tinct Jewish music or a distinct Jewish 
art. The Zionists, therefore, are forced 
to the conviction that if the Jewish people 
is to remain true to its highest interests, 
it indispensably needs a center in which 
it may have a chance to develop its ideals 
and to express itself in its own manner of 
life and thought, and thereby add its dis- 
tinct contribution to the spiritual treasury 
of mankind. 

Mr. Gibbons is entirely wrong when, 
possibly misguided by the information of 
his de-Judaized friends, he repeats the 
platitude that Anti-Semitism is the source 
of Zionism, and that the latter, therefore, 
has no right for existence in the new 
world order in which all Jewish disabili- 
ties are to be abolished. Instead of ab- 
stract arguments, let me state a concrete 
fact : the first public act of Russian Jewry 
after the outbreak of the Russian Revolu- 
tion, and after the declaration of the 
Kerensky government granting full civil 
rights to the Jews of Russia, was to con- 
vene a Zionist congress in Petrograd, 
which was held amidst extraordinary en- 
thusiasm in May, 19 17. The six million 
Russian Jeyvs, while pledging their joyful 
allegiance to the new Russian republic, 
reiterated their demand for a national 
Jewish center in Palestine. 

Mr. Gibbons is anxious to know "what 
Zionism means to the Jew." Let him 
study Jewish history and not rely upon 
the misleading information of his un-Jew- 
ish Jewish friends, and he will perhaps 
get an inkling of the extraordinary, nay, 
unparalleled position which Palestine oc- 
cupies in the Jewish consciousness. He 
will then learn that the handful of Jews 
in Palestine of nearly 2000 years ago 
formed the only nation which, at the 
height of Roman power, dared to resist 
the invincible legions of Rome for four 
years, and made far greater sacrifices in 
the defense of their country than even did 
the heroic Belgians during the onslaught 
of the German hordes in the great World 
War, a patriotism so overwhelming that, 



ZIONISM AND THE WORLD PEACE 



805 



as a Roman historian informs us, many 
Roman soldiers deserted their ranks and 
joined the defenders of Jerusalem to die 
with them a glorious death. He will 
learn of the rebellion of Bar Cochba, in 
A. D. 135, in which the sadly reduced rem- 
nants of the Jewish people lost nearly a 
million men in another endeavor to regain 
their independence. He will also learn 
that when the Jews had been politically 
crushed by superior strength, they yet re- 
mained unshakably faithful to the passion- 
ate pledge of their psalmist: "If I forget 
thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand for- 
get her cunning. If I do not remember 
thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of 
my mouth." The entire consciousness of 
the Jew and his whole mode of life and 
thought have been permeated, to an extent 
which finds no parallel in the history of 
mankind, with the hope and the longing 
for the restoration of his homeland. 
Three times a day the Jew has prayed for 
the reestablishment of Zion. In joy and 
in sorrow he has remembered its past 
glory and dreamed of its future splendor. 
At midnight he sat down on the ground, 
putting ashes on his forehead to weep for 
the destruction of Jerusalem and to pray 
for its rebuilding. And when he went to 
his eternal rest, his eyes were covered with 
the dust that was brought from the holy 
ground. 

I know full well what Palestine means 
to the Christians. I know what it means 
to the Russian peasants, for w^hom Mr. 
Gibbons shows justifiable sympathy. I 
know also what Palestine means to the 
Mohammedans. But neither the Chris- 
tians nor the Mohammedans can even re- 
motely compare with the Jewish people in 
its undying affection for the land of its 
promise. To the Christians and Moham- 
medans Palestine is, after all, the land of 
the past, of a great and hallowed past, but, 
nevertheless, a past. To the Jew it is 
esssentially the land of the future. To 
Christianity and Islam Palestine repre- 
sents a number of "holy places" which 
are connected in their memory with inci- 
dents in the life of their founders, and 
Zionism respects and scrupulously heeds 



these sentiments. But to the Jews Pal- 
estine has remained, as it is still called by 
them, Ei-etz Yisroel, "the Land of Israel." 

Mr. Gibbons flies the facts directly in 
the face when he questions the loyalty of 
the Zionists of Zion, and declares that "in 
Zionist congresses delegates have frequent- 
ly advocated making the United States 
'the promised land,' " or that "Zionist 
congresses have discussed seriously setting 
up Zion in other places than Palestine." 
I have attended many of the Zionist con- 
gresses in person, and have read carefully 
the proceedings of every one of them, but 
I can not think of a single fact that would 
give Mr. Gibbons even the shadow of a 
right to make that charge. Though Jews 
all over the world love the United States 
as the land which has carried into reality 
the ideals proclaimed by their lawgivers 
and prophets thousands of years ago, and 
as the haven of refuge for many of their 
persecuted brethren, there has not been a 
single mention at the Zionist congresses 
of the United States in the role of a 
national center for the Jewish people. 

When, at the Third Zionist Congress, 
in 1899, one of the Zionist delegates sug- 
gested that the Jews use the island of 
Cyprus as a stepping-stone to the Jewish 
commonwealth in Palestine, he was not 
permitted to proceed, and his resolution 
did not even come up for a vote. When 
at the Sixth Zionist Congress, in 1903, 
Dr. Herzl, under the effect of the terrible 
Kishinef pogroms, w^hich had taken place 
a few weeks before, laid before the con- 
gress a communication of the British Gov- 
ernment offering the Jews a Jewish com- 
monwealth in Uganda, in East Africa, the 
Zionist delegates, despite Dr. Herzl's sol- 
emn declaration that Uganda should never 
and could never substitute Zion, and Dr. 
Nordau's masterly plea that Uganda was 
merely to serve as a Nachtasyl, refused to 
listen to their beloved and othenvise im- 
plicitly trusted leaders. Out of regard for 
the British Government and the motives 
which prompted their offer, the congress, 
after a memorably passionate debate, final- 
ly decided by a majority vote to grant 
the request of the Zionist leaders that a 



806 



THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 



commission of investigation be sent to East 
Africa, on the express understanding that 
no Zionist funds should be made available 
for this purpose. And yet the Russian 
Zionists, the victims of the pogroms, in 
whose behalf that offer w^as made, left the 
hall in a body. Those who were present 
at that congress; and witnessed the inde- 
scribable despair which was stamped on 
the tear-stained faces of these delegates 
after the adoption of the Uganda resolu- 
tion will cherish the memory of that scene 
as an overwhelming manifestation of the 
Jew's loyalty to Zion. 

It is a well-known fact that Dr. Herzl's 
death was hastened, if not caused, by the 
storm of indignation which his offer had 
aroused in the Zionist world. And when 
after his death the Seventh Zionist Con- 
gress assembled in 1905, it adopted unani- 
mously the resolution that "The Zionist 
organization stands firmly by the funda- 
mental principle of the Basle Program, 
namely, 'the establishment of a legally se- 
cured, publicly assured home for the Jew- 
ish people in Palestine,' and it rejects, 
either as an end or as a means, any colo- 
nizing activity outside of Palestine and its 
adjacent lands." It was this resolution, 
and not the British protests, to which 
Mr. Gibbons refers in his article, which 
once for all removed the Uganda scheme 
and similar proposals from the range of 
Zionist politics. 

Mr. Gibbons would make us believe 
that this loyalty to Palestine has recently 
been weakened in the Jewish camp, and 
he quotes as his authorities, as he is wont 
to do, some of his obliging Jewish friends. 
Here again Mr. Gibbons shows that he 
is hopelessly out of touch with the actual 
conditions prevailing in the Zionist move- 
ment. It is true that there are many 
Jews who have become estranged from 
the Jewish people and who, in the hope of 
seeing Judaism disappear in the vortex of 
humanity, violently oppose the Zionist 
idea, which aims at the conservation and 
rejuvenation of the Jewish people. But 
these Jews are an infinitesimal fraction of 
Jewry, and they have no right to speak 
for it. I do not know why, of all the 



numerous Jews quoted by Mr. Gibbons, 
Grand Rabbi Levy of France is the only 
one mentioned by name; possibly be- 
cause his title might impress the unini- 
tiated reader as representing an unques- 
tioned authority in Jewish life. But I am 
constrained to say that if Grand Rabbi 
Levy is correctly quoted in stating that 
there are only 100,000 Zionists outside of 
America, he is as grotesquely ignorant of 
the Zionist movement as is Mr. Gibbons, 
and that in his disapproval of Zionism he 
speaks at the utmost for the 50,000 
French Jews, most of whom have become 
thoroughly assimilated or are thirsting for 
assimilation. 

As for this country, Mr. Gibbons some- 
what contradicts himself when in one sen- 
tence he declares that Zionism has lost 
its hold upon American Jews, and in 
another sentence informs us of the fact, 
which would testify to a much greater 
power of American Zionism than can 
ever, or will ever, be claimed by it, that 
prominent Jews of America who have as- 
sured him privately "that they view the 
whole movement with the gravest misgiv- 
ings," nevertheless "openly sponsor the 
project simply because at the present mo- 
ment no Jew can without injury to him- 
self throw cold water on Zionism." 
Neither Mr. Gibbons nor his courageous 
Jewish friends are correct in their state- 
ments. It is true that there are Jews in 
America who are anti-Zionists, and they 
are by no means silent in their disapproval 
and denunciation of Zionism; but it is 
also true that, outside of this small frac- 
tion of American Jewry, Zionism has 
made extraordinary strides in this country 
as well as in other lands, which may best 
be proved by the plain statistical fact that 
the annual budget of the American Zion- 
ist organization has jumped within a few 
years from $15,000 to $3,000,000. 

Mr. Gibbons, it would seem, is com- 
pletely out of touch with the Jewish quar- 
ter in Philadelphia, for had he been pres- 
ent at the Philadelphia Zionist Conven- 
tion in June, 19 16, or had he attended the 
American Jewish Congress that was held 
in the same city only a month ago, in De- 



ZIONISM AND THE WORLD PEACE 



807 



cember, 191 8, at which the Palestine reso- 
lution was adopted amidst indescribable 
enthusiasm, with one dissenting vote 
against 357, he could not possibly have 
made a statement in such hopeless dis- 
agreement with the facts. In parenthesis 
it may be remarked that his Philadelphia 
friend, whom he met as an officer in the 
American Expeditionary Force, and who 
told him that, like Lord Rothschild, he 
was for Zionism only if he could be am- 
bassador for the new state at London, is 
a little behind the times. For it was a 
Lord Rothschild to whom, as the vice- 
chairman of the English Zionist Federa- 
tion, Arthur James Balfour addressed his 
declaration promising Palestine to the Jew. 
But to proceed to the second argument 
of Mr. Gibbons. He challenges the right 
of the great powers to foist Zionism upon 
the Palestinian Arabs, and points out the 
danger of setting up a non-Mohammedan 
theocracy in a Mohammedan world. It is 
curious that Mr. Gibbons should be in 
favor of setting up a vast Mohammedan 
state in the near East, since he is insistent 
in his view of Mohammedanism as a 
"theocratic system of government" to the 
extent that, as he emphatically states, — a 
statement which will be indignantly repu- 
diated by Mohammedans and those who are 
familiar with Mohammedan doctrine, — 
"it is always legally right for Moslems to 
kill non-Moslems," and that Mohammed- 
ans could never agree "to grant equality to 
raias (non-Moslem subjects)." If he be- 
lieves that modern influences are bound to 
weaken or to modify the fundamental 
theocratic complexion of the Mohamme- 
dan state, why should he not make the 
same charitable allowance in the case of 
the Jewish people, which more than three 
thousand years ago proclaimed the doc- 
trine of one statute for the Jews and for 
the stranger, and which less than a year 
ago, at the Zionist Convention held in 
Pittsburgh in June, 19 18, placed the prin- 
ciple of "political and civil equality of 
race, sect, or faith of all the inhabitants of 
the land" at the head of the constitution 
that is to govern the new Jewish com- 
monwealth ? 



But the idea that the Zionists wish to 
establish a theocracy in Palestine will 
cause a riot of mirth among those who 
are acquainted with conditions in modern 
Zionism. Dr. Theodore Herzl, to whom 
Mr. Gibbons occasionally refers in his 
article, would turn in his grave could he 
listen to the charge that he was the pro- 
tagonist of a Jewish theocracy. Dr. Max 
Nordau, Louis D. Brandeis, Dr. Weiz- 
man, nay, even Ahad Ha'am, the famous 
champion of "Spiritual Zionism," and 
many other leading Zionists who are in 
the van of modern thought, will be 
amazed, or possibly amused, at this impli- 
cation. Is it possible that Mr. Gibbons, 
who has so many Jewish friends opposed 
to Zionism, has never heard from them 
the stock-in-trade argument of Jewish 
anti-Zionists that Zionism is not suffi- 
ciently religious and much too secular? 
There is no question that the relation 
between religion and state will be one of 
the most momentous issues which will 
confront the new Jewish commonwealth, 
and those Zionists who are thoroughly 
permeated with the religious spirit of Ju- 
daism fervently hope that a solution will 
be found that will harmonize the ancient 
ideals of Judaism with the requirements 
of modern times; but I can assure Mr. 
Gibbons that there is no Zionist who 
wishes for the establishment of a Jewish 
commonwealth that will in any way con- 
tradict the ideas of justice and equality 
such as are at the bottom of every modern 
body politic. 

But have the Jews a right to claim Pal- 
estine, when at the present time they num- 
ber only 100,000 in a country which has 
630,000 non-Jews, "of whom 550,000 
form a solid Arabic-speaking Moslem 
block, in racial and religious sympathy 
with the neighboring Arabs of Syria, 
Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Egypt"? In 
the entire argumentation of Mr. Gibbons 
this is the only objection that is apt to 
command the serious attention of the 
Zionists, not only because of the weight 
of concrete numbers, but primarily be- 
cause, in their desire to establish a com- 
monwealth on the foundations of the an- 



THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 



cient Jewish ideals of justice and right- 
eousness, they are anxious to avert any- 
thing that might in the slightest degree 
conflict with these ideals. But is it true 
that these 630,000 Palestinian Arabs are 
''unanimously" opposed to Zionism? The 
fact of the matter is that the Mohamme- 
dan Arabs of Palestine, forming nine 
tenths of the Palestinian population, have 
heretofore been in favor of Zionism, see- 
ing what the Zionists, under most adverse 
conditions, have already done for the re- 
juvenation of their desolate land; and the 
Greek-Orthodox Christians, who form an 
overwhelming majority of the Christian 
population of the Holy Land, have re- 
peatedly expressed themselves in the same 
manner. Emir Feisal, the Crown Prince 
of the Kingdom of the Hedjaz, publicly 
assured the Zionist leaders that the Arabs 
are prepared to cooperate with the Jews 
in the development of the near East. 
Those Arabs who have spoken against 
Zionism are as a rule non-Palestinians, 
inhabitants of Syria or Egypt, who have 
no right to speak for the Palestinian na- 
tives. The protest of the particular Pal- 
estinian Arab referred to by Mr. Gibbons, 
which for very obvious reasons was per- 
mitted by the French censor to see the 
light of publicity, is the exception and 
not the rule, and is due to Influences 
which have little in common with ques- 
tions of justice and righteousness. 

Mr. Gibbons tells us that ''the argu- 
ment of the Zionists that there is room 
for them, too, in Palestine, is absurd." Is 
it? It would be, did the Zionists fail to 
recognize "the civil and religious rights 
of existing non-Jewish communities in 
Palestine." But is it absurd when these 
rights are safeguarded? Were we to ac- 
cept Mr. Gibbons's point of view, with all 
its logical implications, then the colonial 
empires of France, Great Britain, and 
Italy are one gigantic injustice. Then, 
for that matter, the Pilgrims on the May- 
flower committed the most stupendous 
crime in history when they set their foot 
on Plymouth Rock in the assumption that 
there was room for them, too, in America. 

Mr. Gibbons overlooks the fact that 



Palestine is neither historically nor emo- 
tionally an Arabic country. When the 
Arabs dream of their ancient glory, which 
the writer, who is a zealous student and 
ardent admirer of ancient Arabic civiliza- 
tion, appreciates far more profoundly than 
does Mr. Gibbons, they think of Nejd 
and Hedjaz, the cradle of their race and 
religion ; they think of the splendor of the 
Ommiads at Damascus, of the magnificence 
of the Abbassides at Bagdad, of the power 
of the Fatimites at Cairo ; but they do not 
think of Jerusalem. Spain is far more in- 
timately and far more gloriously inter- 
woven with Arabic culture than is Pales- 
tine. During the twelve hundred years 
and more that the Arabs have lived in 
Palestine they have, despite their remark- 
able achievements in other lands, never de- 
veloped an Arabic culture that is worth 
speaking of. Nor have the Christians 
managed to do so, although they have 
been backed by the powerful influences 
and resources of various European gov- 
ernments. But the handful of Jews who 
have come to Palestine as the land of their 
fathers and have been willing to brave the 
dangers and hardships, which can be paral- 
leled only by the similar experiences of the 
early colonists of New England, have suc- 
ceeded in setting up a civilization, or, 
rather, the beginnings of a civilization, 
which, in the judgment of all unbiased ob- 
servers, is the greatest cultural factor in 
the Palestine of to-day. To mention only 
one example, in less than one generation 
the Jews of Palestine have performed the 
greatest linguistic miracle known in his- 
tory by making again the ancient tongue 
of their prophets a living language, after 
Its having served as a purely literary me- 
dium of expression for nearly two thou- 
sand years. The Jews, who are of the 
same race as the Arabs, — a kinship ce- 
mented by the profound and beneficent in- 
fluence which their cultures exercised upon 
one another for many centuries, — ^have 
genuine sympathy with their aspirations" 
and look forward to the reestablishment of 
ancient Arabic glory ; but they see no rea- 
son why on the vast expanse of a new 
Arabic world which is now being set up 



ZIONISM AND THE WORLD PEACE 



809 



by the great powers they have no right to 
claim a little corner in which, in harmony 
w^ith their fellow-inhabitants, they may 
rejuvenate the ancient glory of Zion. 

Finally, to take up IVIr. Gibbons's third, 
or, rather, first, argument, our author up- 
braids the Zionists for favoring British 
sovereignty over Palestine and not believ- 
ing "in the internationalization of Pales- 
tine or in any form of dual or multiple 
political control." I confess that, as far 
as the political implications of the move- 
ment are concerned, I cannot speak with 
the same authorit)^ as Mr. Gibbons, who, 
as I learn from the newspapers, is Ameri- 
can lecturer for the French Ministry for 
Foreign Affairs. I have no knowledge 
w^hatsoever of the negotiations between 
the Zionist leaders and the Government 
of Great Britain prior to the Balfour 
declaration, nor of their negotiations with 
the governments of France, Italy, and the 
other powers that subsequently indorsed 
it. Speaking without official authority 
and merely as one of the Zionist rank and 
file, I may be permitted to state the con- 
siderations w^hich have guided the Zionists 
in objecting to "a dual or multiple politi- 
cal control over Palestine." The Zionists 
look with disfavor, nay, with apprehen- 
sion, to such a contingency, for the simple 
reason that, hoping to see the Jew^s of 
Palestine live their own life and to remain 
true to the morally lofty as well as prac- 
tically sound, policy of the prophet Isaiah, 
"in sitting still and rest shall ye be saved; 
in quietness and in confidence shall be 
your strength," they do not wish to see 
Zion, the symbol of universal peace, be- 
come the hotbed of European rivalries and 
jealousies. They do not wish to see the 
frail craft of their infant commonwealth 
crushed or crippled by the impact of the 
huge vessels representing the great world 
powers. 

As for the particular government under 
whose control Palestine is to be placed, 
Mr. Gibbons may be assured that there is 
no Jew anywhere who does not have a 
soft spot in his heart for the great French 
people, who was the first to extend the 
ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity 



to its Jewish citizens; but the Zionists 
cannot overlook the fact that, quite apart 
from the British conquest of Palestine, 
Great Britain was the first power to rec- 
ognize "the distinct nationhood of the 
Jews," and that the Balfour declaration 
connects directly, across the chasm of 
twenty-five hundred years, with the edict 
of Cyrus, permitting the Jews to realize 
their national ideal. Knowing the history 
of the Zionist movement, in the course of 
which England has twice offered a Jewish 
commonw^ealth to the Jews, the first time 
in Wadi Al-Arlsh, on the Palestine-Eg}p- 
tlan frontier, and the second time in East 
Africa, and in circumstances w^hich left no 
room for any possible suspicion of ulterior 
motives, the Zionists- are firmly convinced 
that in its last and noblest offer Great 
Britain was prompted not "by the prin- 
ciple of political expediency severely de- 
nounced by President Wilson," but by 
considerations of justice and huma^It}^, 
and by that profound sympathy with Jew- 
ish suffering and Jewish aspirations which 
has been manifested on so many other oc- 
casions in the course of English politics. 
It is not true, as Mr. Gibbons alleges, 
that "the Zionists have not Interpreted the 
declaration of the British Government ac- 
cording to its clear wording." They have 
remained faithful both in letter and In 
spirit to the Balfour pronouncement, 
w^hlch was officially Indorsed by M. 
Pichon, the French Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, on February 12, 191 8. It is not 
they who are responsible for the lack "of 
unity and purpose" between the great 
powers, but rather those w^ho wish to play 
out the French imperialists against the 
British Imperialists. The Zionists heartily 
agree wnth Mr. Gibbons that the near- 
Eastern questions must be solved in "a 
sense of justice and a spirit of self-abnega- 
tion" ; but If these questions are actually to 
"be met squarely and solved fairly," then 
America must not allow the spirit of Prus- 
sian domination to raise its head again. 

Before I conclude, let me touch on one 
general argument which runs like a red 
thread throughout the entire article of 
Mr. Gibbons. It is the argument, or 



810 



THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 



rather the warning, that if the Jews will 
not abandon their aspirations in Palestine, 
they will be overwhelmed by an avalanche 
of anti-Semitism which will undermine 
their civil position everywhere : in France, 
In Russia, in Poland, and — this is more 
hinted at than expressly stated — in Amer- 
ica. This argument, which was evidently 
paramount in the minds of Mr. Gibbons's 
Jewish friends, including Grand Rabbi 
Levy of France, leaves the Zionists cold. 
The Jew who knows the history of his 
people is well aware of the fact that anti- 
Semitism Is much older than Zionism. 
There have always been people who could 
not forgive the Jews for insisting on re- 
maining Jews. The Russian czars, whose 
unlimited power seemed to be concen- 
trated on the extermination of the Jewish 
race, did not wait for the appearance of 
modern Zionism, and the scientific anti- 
Semitism of Germany sprang Into exist- 
ence long before there was any trace of 
Zionism in the fatherland. The enemies 
of the Jews will never be at a loss to find 
reasons for their hatred. The Jews being 
a people of many millions, with alert 
minds and busy hands, some of them will 
always be doing something which will be 
displeasing to somebody. They will be 
attacked In Bolshevist Russia because they 
are suspected of being bourgeois, and mas- 
sacred In bourgeois Poland because they 
are supposed to be Bolsheviks. The Jews 
claim the same rights and the same duties 
of citizenship as do the non-Jews. Like 
their ancestors in Babylonia, they follow 
the prophetic Injunction **to seek the wel- 
fare of the city whither they have been ex- 
iled." They are ready to live and. If nec- 
essary, to die for the land of their birth or 
adoption. In the great World War the 
Zionists were the first to volunteer in the 
various armies, and thousands of them lie 
buried on the European battle-fields, wit- 
nesses to the loyalty and civic devotion of 



the Jews. In the "Lost Battalion," which 
covered itself with imperishable glory in 
the thickets of the Argonne forest, and 
was made up largely of Yiddish-speaking 
Jews hailing from eastern Europe, the 
overwhelming majority consisted 'of Zion- 
ists. 

The Zionists are willing to be measured 
by the severest standards of loyalty and 
patriotism, and they are confident that they 
will never be found wanting. But If, de- 
spite their loyalty and devotion and despite 
their readiness to serve their country, the 
Jews are to be threatened with anti-Semit- 
ism merely because. In response to a tradi- 
tion of four thousand years, they long for a 
small corner of the globe where a part of 
their nation, which has left Its Indelible 
Impress upon the civilization of the world, 
may once more live according to that tra- 
dition, then by all means let anti-Semitism 
come. The Jews are a stiff-necked people, 
They have outlived the Hamans of an- 
tiquity. They have survived the tortures 
of the Middle Ages, of which modern 
Christianity Is rightly ashamed, and they 
will survive the savagery, which some 
people wish to carry into the new world 
order, holding fast to their cherished as- 
pirations, and waiting for the time when, 
in the words of President Wilson, the 
problem of politics will be **to satisfy all 
men In the arrangements of their lives," 
and "to realize for them, as far as possi- 
ble, the objects they have entertained gen- 
eration after generation, and have seen so 
often postponed." The Jews may not be 
in a position to accept the words of "the 
Palestinian Jew" who said, "My kingdom 
Is not of this world," but they passion- 
ately believe in the time when, in the 
words of the same Palestinian Jew, there 
will be, despite all attempts to revive the 
injustice of the old world In the new, 
"Glory to God In the highest, and on 
earth peace, good will toward men." 






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